NancyGormezano

I have an extensive library of my own special pattern pens, image hoses, special gradient pens that I've developed over the years in painter. I don't think they would transfer over. I love the watercolor features, oil, natural media, papers, so many other features as well. But I should take a peek at manga studio as well.

You can only have z buffered shadows option with kliegs lights in the chor select the klieglight /options/cast shadows ON/change type to z buffered (should be the default) - tweak softness, darkness, etc You can also have ray traced lights with kliegs (but don't render as fast) But if you are thinking that white render = claymation look, then perhaps you are thinking that chor is rendered with Ambiance Intensity and ambiance occlusion ? It's the occlusion that will cause your render times to sky rocket (consider using SSAO instead). Using Ambiance intensity by itself has NO render hit.

Thanks Chris...I just do what I do...and don't try to recreate anyone else's look (normally), but will find inspiration, new ideas from everyone. Hmmm... I am just now experimenting with flat shading, toon lines, front projection and global ambiance type/global color - in 18d/64 and things are not quite how I remember with respect to all this (something is funny). My brain is currently in a muddled state due to migrating to new computer...so take what I say with "caution" until further notice (uhh...which may be never). I can get lines, I can get shadows, but I'm having a hard time getting both with flat shading (ie no gradient - this is different on my old machine last I looked)??? EDIT: If I change diffuse falloff of teapot surface to 0% then I get no gradient (again I'm not sure of all settings, this graphics card, 18d/64 works differently)

I would be hard pressed to draw out a schematic of what the rendering options and branching opportunities are but at the core is the difference between (Render using this dialogue) and (Use Camera Settings). Where possible I have tried to use camera settings rather than A:M overwriting via render dialogue. This is somewhat problematic however because upon each new install or reset of A:M (I believe) A:M resets to 'This Dialogue'. .... Unless I made a mistake I'd say that the Shift Q and Q renders look almost exactly the same but the final render picks up some additional (red) lighting or ambiance from somewhere. First - I always set in the dialog Tools/options/rendering/ advanced/"use settings from the camera", EXCEPT when I've become brain dead (happening more and more frequently). (following is based on memory - because I don't have all my files on this machine yet) And yes all this gets reset when you install a new version of A:M, just as the tabs on ALL the tools/options get set to A:M default with fresh install. I suppose thats a good thing as it's a way to reset A:M after install. But it would be nice to be able to make a file that would save the users personal preference settings for all the tabs. And one could open this file after installing new version. (feature request?) Assuming you have set "use camera settings" - Quick render or Shift Q (or green button) is a progressive render (based on camera settings) I tend to use Final multipass ON in camera so at least 1 pass comes up quickly. Shift Q does NOT render all features - eg toon lines? This will keep rendering (progressively) as you change some settings (in model, chor, anywhere) to quickly see effect. Will not do post effects either (can't remember what else) Q - or Render Mode (blue button) - will give a closer look to what Final Render will look like - not sure it does post effects either (especially ssao),but will do toon lines - but this will give closer look to what you can expect from REAL render. Will only change (go away) after you click something else. The final proof is the FINAL render. But I have encountered bugs where my Shift Q render and Final render are not anywhere near the same and should be (elusive to track down, and really BUG - but I have a report in). It is rare. I am concerned about your ambiance occlusion value - 200%? That might be the problem - unless you don't have Ambiance occlusion ON in camera? - if so, did you try setting it to 0? Are you using SSAO? that might be the difference in the Q render and Final render?

Yes the noise is interesting - I thought it was on purpose and might have been a post process effect. And as for the differences in real-time (progressive render) versus final rendered - post a screen capture of just 1 still versus the same rendered still...it may or may not be something that Steffen could fix? I have also noticed that sometimes. Usually I like the rendered versions better, but I think? (not sure) I have noticed with toon rendering that things are not always what they seem.

Yikes I see 3 ears! never converges to 1 - that's VERY disturbing to an old person. Terrific modeling! You might check out Malo's method of modeling, for the future, where you never have to worry about figuring out how to join parts together, nor problems with 5 pointers. It's a bit unsettling to change over to this technique, as things tend to look messy in the initial laying down of minimal splines, and one wonders how on earth it will ever look like it should.

maybe...but not as much as they cost... I've learned to use a tablet for 20? years now, the same one that I bought with a win 3.1? machine (and my first copy of painter), and am still using the same original nib. They don't make-um like they useta! I even have an adaptor on it to go from serial to usb, on my winxp pro system - but the problem is - can't get drivers for it for win 7 - otherwise - I'd still be using it.

I also made that decision when I was 50 and have never regretted it. I learned to scale way back in expenditures, and learned what was essential for living. I found STUFF does not make me happy (usually the opposite)...but having new EXPERIENCES fill me with great joy.

very Nice!

WOW! - I loved it! Loved the render style, movement, music! well, well done! The toon lines look great, and that is probably where the render hit comes from. There are ways to do a "white render" that are lickety-split fast rendering, and even have a ground shadow, but the lines will still add time. In general: have ONLY 1 light klieg with z-buffered shadows (tweak the shadows darkness, softness to your liking) have ground plane options set to front projected, flat shaded (in chor) set your model option in chor to flat shaded only (not front projected, also assuming your model's surface diffuse color is white) set camera background color to white render with toon lines only and test rendering with Final (no multipass) versus Final with multipass (with minimum # of passes you can get away with - like 3? if go above 4, then turn soften off) to see which way shorten's your render times (in your version)

This is looking very very good! and looking very INTERESTING (even to a non-zombie afficionado)! I'm so glad to hear that you are enjoying the process once again...and making a comic (aka potential storyboard), along with animation is WONDERFUL and suits you so well. And animation is more about "show, don't tell" in general. For me, I tend to linger over stills, images to inspect them and look for details...but for animations, the beauty is so fleeting, and I rarely rewatch, unless I am looking for details that I might have missed, or the animation was exceptionally brilliant. Quite disheartening when I consider how much time, effort goes into making animations. I of course, am not counting the gabazillion times I rewatch my own, during the creation process and as well as after. Wishing Much Success to you!

Yeah, me too! Nosey that is. Sounds interesting!

NEAT!

I agree 1 million percent! Just checked old computer and yes it was rendering 320 x 240 at 6:03 in 16b/32. The following is more of a "status update" and "still to do" list: (ie, justifying why it took me 3+ years just thinking about upgrading) In general, I am very pleased with new monitor (HUGE), and the responsiveness of new system. But this has not been an easy migration - as I am running into ...uh... more like creating self-induced... gotchas GALORE. In general most OLD OLD programs are installing and working well and better than I thought (Family tree maker, Thumbs plus, Pmail) so I'm pretty pleased. Other stuff - without a hitch also: Google Earth, SynbackSE, Garmin basecamp, Image Composite Editor, Audacity, Bookmarks. MS Office (2000) - would not work - BUT OpenOffice is MAHRVELOUS and works a treat! Quicktime Pro is still a mess (could not get the 7.7.5?) but was able to get my 7.6.something to run (after paying $30), except that I still keep getting security warnings about from firefox whenever try to play movies (but can play anyhow) More dumb stuff that I have done (in addition to not running A:M benchmark correctly): tried to install PSPad, and went into brain dead mode when I clicked on allowing them to install some 3rd party crap (thought I was saying yes to EULA, and it was too late into install process) - uninstalled, and had to remove some nasty adware garbage. Tried to install my fonts, but in the process of copying from my OLD system - screwed up my OLD system fonts to garbage (but I was able to recover eventually). Still to do: Will probably have to buy a new copy of Corel Painter (big bucks) as my copy is too old to upgrade, and won't activate. Will need a tablet (will go with wacom Intuos pro probably). Install & activate photoshop cs4, After effects cs4 (both were gifts, I am dreading the activation process), KPT, old old premiere 6.0(not holding my breath), dreamweaver (not sure), decide on Antivirus (other than Mcaffee) A:M related: need to install TSM2, FakeAO, 3Dpainter. Not sure how those licenses will travel to new system (probably won't, and probably won't be able to get new licenses). Bought a new license for this machine. Couldn't use my gift certificate for some reason (glitches in checkout), but I am very happy to support A:M ! Need to make backup/restore discs (and decide what I will go with in long run for that). Looked into partitioning...not sure what I will do, might just get another harddrive and call it D!...have not transfered all my photos, images, resource libraries, datafiles for projects, etc yet, waiting to decide on configuration of disks. Have to set up printer, scanner sharing.

Pretty sure I tested with "use settings from camera" as that is my usual default setting on 16b, 18a on old computer - but YES, I will check when I next turn it back on. Thanks again and again and again!

It's supposed to be 320x240 reallly!!!! are you sure? TESTING right now - I hope I hope I hope that was the problem! I don't remember ever changing the resolution in the project (used project that was on my old HD) RESULT - 1:35! really??? 320 x240??? oh - so good! EDIT: And here is why I had been rendering at the wrong resolution: I hadn't checked "use settings from camera" because I had just installed A:M and hadn't tweaked it to how I usually run - so default comes up as VGA, and I hadn't gone back to first post of the thread for instructions! Kiss Kiss Kiss kiss !!!! I am sooooooo happy - thank you thank you thank you !

I didn't change anything other than file location to jpg : Final (multipass off), shadows, reflections 2, 640 x480 oy oy oy that sounds dangerous to change - will look into that later And that is what is confusing me - because it looks like 4 cores (4 threads?) are running with only 1 instance of A:M, rendering only 1 frame. Maybe it was because I installed with SSE4? - I will reinstall without that option. And I was noticing that with last tweak to power performance - the core parking "cpu" would change as the processing went on...I guess that's because of how hyperthreading works? EDIT: I reinstalled a copy of 18d without sse4 (now says it is sse3) - time went down to 4:55 (not significant change)

I changed the minimum processor state to 100% (it was at 5%, the maximum processor state was 100%) - but it didn't make much difference with 18d (4:57, from 4:59). Have not tried running multiple A:M's. Maybe the maximum can be increased? Sounds risky? On the resource monitor still looks like A:M only consumes 13% cpu usage - but the maximum frequency is shown as 102%. I don't think upping minimum cpu usage impacts significantly -I think that's just an indication of the cpu resources that the process is consuming - and a low number probably indicates it's not running out of resources. I suspect it's the maximum frequency might be the issue? But I don't know how to test if processor is running at 3.4GHz really (that's what it is rated when do a Belarc) and have no idea how to up (push? overclock?) the frequency. I do not have any utility that I am aware of to change the frequency.

here is what performance monitor looks like when A:M 18d SSE4 is running. I don't know if any of this has anything to do with anything, BUT funny things that I see (that I don't understand) are: 1) what does CPU parked mean? 2) why is A:M OS context windows Vista? 3) why are 4 Cpu's churning when only rendering 1 frame?

Something is very wrong, and it might be because I don't understand optimizing win7 or..I might have purchased a DOG. I need help with finding out why new system is performing so badly (compared to old)..not much of a speed up at all, and in the case of running 16b/32 - it's slower. OLD system: xp pro 32, core2duo 3.2ghz, 3GB, nvidia 8600 256 NEW system: win 7-64 pro, i7-4770 3.4 (up to 3.9 - whatever that means), 16gb, nvidia gtx 650 1 gb. (dell xps 8700 special edition) I am running Robs benchmark test and results are disappointing, surprisingly. I can only compare old and new with render times for ver16b/32 since old system was Xp pro 32 OS on 16b 32 (see http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...t&p=379866) OLD system: 6:01 NEW system: 7:46! yikes So I tried out the 64bit versions of A:M on NEW system and get 17g: 5:02 18d: 4:59 Not very stellar. This is nowhere near what others are getting (bigboote, robcat, steffen), for what I thought were similar and some less speed cpus. What am I doing wrong? or what settings might I look at to see what might be causing this? Are there some settings that I can change? Or did I just get a pig and order the wrong setup? other things: Should I not install A:M with sse4 option checked? When I look at my resource monitor as A:M is rendering I THINK I see 4 cpu's fired up (when I am only doing 1 frame) - not sure what's going on - that seems strange. IS HYPERTHREADING a problem? how do I turn off? Other processes running that I should be aware are hogging something? Should I not be running in Admin mode? What is Steffen doing to get such AMAZING render times on his systems? info repeated here: Intel Core i7-2600k (3,4 GHz) 32GB memory Win7 Pro 64bit A:M 16.0b 2:37 A:M 17a2 2:16 even faster 1:35 i7-4770 32gb memory gtx660 V18 alpha3 (but the speed hit is coming from the cpu , not from the version , with V17g nearly the same time) Help help help - Please. Not sure where, how to proceed. Where should I look? This is still within 30 day period. Is there bloat ware impacting the performance that I'm not aware of? Dell diagnostics on HW test out fine (everything passed, found no anomalies)

Ok I've got firefox - and I now can see my content, posts from my profile page..what's the deal with that ? How come it didn't work with IE? how strange! running McAfee antivirus temporarily as this is what system came with - will probably go with Norton or something else later - lots to do - feeling like a fish out of water on a bicycle I won't be browsing to any websites I don't already know are safe (like here!)

more than likely it is me - but just in case - I signed in as nancygormezano (should have been NancyGormezano?) - and I can not see my content (topics, posts) when I go to my profile page. Could be Explorer? I usually use Firefox (haven't downloaded yet) Don't worry about it, unless it's something obvious...when I get to be more fluent on this computer, then I can help shake it down EDIT: I can see my topics and posts when I click on the pull down menu under my posts in a thread, I just don't see them when I go to my profile page

OK - my new computer is here and I am testing it out. This is first web site I tried. Have not installed anything yet. So far I am not able to see my profile on forum (content and posts) but maybe there is something going on with forum? maybe it's me and how I logged on? Boy am I feeling awkward - with new os, keyboard, monitor, mouse, browser, etc after so many years of being comfortable with xp, crt, firefox, old keyboard, mouse...

I enjoyed the first part of her interview, found it to have some new insights for me. I thought I would enjoy watching the excerpts from her improv course, but lost interest. Can be team building, but I also think it is a good way to develop and get in touch with one's own spontaneity or lack of.

Just watched the first one with Ed Hooks (I have his book "Acting for animators") . In general, I found it a bit tedious, and stopped listening to the words. However, I found it fascinating to watch the different body language, expressions, gestures contrasting Hooks and his interviewer. Would be fun to do an (short - not 21 minutes) animation of the 2 of them together. Hooks - laid back, low power center, many hand gestures, wonderful facial expressions, tics, smug, confident authority...whilst the interviewer - high power center, tight, nervous, minimal facial expressions, feeling submissive? Maybe it was tedious because I didn't hear anything "new, revolutionary"? Will watch the 2nd.